Smooth awakening: The 'sunrise' pillow that wakes you up gently

A pillow that doubles as an alarm clock has been invented by a pair of university students.

The Glo Pillow has in-built LEDs that brighten gradually over the space of 40 minutes. This pulls you slowly from a deep sleep and leaves you feeling wide awake.

It proves an alternative to a traditional alarm clock, which gives the body a sudden shock and can interrupt any stage of the sleep cycle.

The Glo pillow avoids alarm clock shocks by using in-built lights to simulate a sun rise and wake you up slowly

With an audio alarm, once the adrenaline wears off, drowsiness quickly sets back in. The Glo Pillow carries users naturally through the sleep cycle to wake them at the right stage.

The user can set the time they wish to wake up and the lights gradually brighten from off, up to 500 lux over a time period of 40 minutes.

Researchers found that waking slowly over this period results in 'optimal' alertness.Most people will be woken by a light strength of 220 lux, so the pillow adapts itself to suit the user.

There are lights on both ends of the pillow to wake you whether you sleep on your left, right, back or front, and as all the lights are extremely soft and flexible, they cannot be felt through the pillow.

An on/off switch allows the pillow to used as a reading light, while a built in clock can be displayed using an LED grid.

A soft control panel on the side allows you to display and change the time, set the alarm and turn the light on and off.

Eoin McNally, 25, and Ian Walton, 24, designed the pillow as part of their industrial design degree at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, Ireland.

They were asked to create a product that would combat the pressures of a 24-hour lifestyle, however the university project has taken off and is now going into production after winning a Royal Society of Arts award.

Mr Walton, from Dublin, believes the Glo Pillow is less stressful than a traditional alarm clock.

'We did a lot of research and found people hate waking up to an audio alarm because it feels so unnatural' he said.'It induces stress and creates a fight or flight response, as if there was an intruder in your room.

'You may well be alert for a minute but you quickly become drowsy again.It is more natural to wake gradually as the sun rises outside.

'Our pillow recreates that natural light cycle and pulls people slowly from a deep sleep.' He added: 'The pillow has a LED substrate material underneath that is incredibly soft and flexible.

'When most people think of LEDs they think of hard little nodules, but this is nothing like that.

'This feels just like any other pillow. The lights have a maximum brightness of around 500 lux but most people will wake up when it gets to around 220.'

'The pillow learns what brightness you need to wake up and changes its settings to wake you up gradually over the course of 40 minutes.

'This helps to set the circadian rhythm or body clock and results in more healthy sleep/wake patterns.'

The pillow is likely to hit the shops at the end of the year and retail for about £45.